I get a lot of compliments on my barbecue sauce. I think it’s because it has a good balance of salty, sweet, and spicy. It is extremely easy to make, too. It’s just a matter of tasting and adjusting the ingredients to get the perfect balance.

Savvy BBQ Sauce

Ingredients:

2 C ketchup
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 jalapeños, sliced
3 Tbs vegetable oil
1 C water
2 C brown sugar
2 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
Salt/Pepper

Directions:

Mix together in a bowl. Taste the sauce and adjust the flavoring accordingly. Is it too sweet? Add more salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce. Is it too watery or oily? Add more ketchup. Not spicy enough? Put in another jalapeño. The trick is to keep adjusting until it is exactly the way you like it. That is how you get the raves from your guests.

Cost of Dish: Ketchup: $.50; Worcestershire sauce: $.10; Brown sugar: $.75; Oil: $.05; Jalapeños and Garlic: free from the garden; Water: free; Salt: practically free.
Total Cost of Dish: $1.40
Cost in Store: $4 per bottle (estimate?)
Total savings: $2.60 per bottle of BBQ sauce

Have a great Fourth of July!

Today my leather couch is being delivered after months and months of looking and waiting. My living room is finally coming together.

Except, now I need tables. Most notably, side tables. We’ve been looking for the perfect side table for awhile now, but I haven’t seen exactly the right thing yet. The one that has come closest was a safe I saw in an antique store. It looked something like this:

I was taken with the idea of having a safe as a side table. It seemed unique and practical at the same time. Plus, extra storage. I mean, look at the inside of one of these:

Unfortunately, the safe I saw was $600. But it was competitively priced, apparently, because the next time I went to the antique store, it had been sold.

My wedding was 7 years ago. It cost around $1,500. It was a nice wedding too. We had the ceremony in a beautiful church and the reception under a grape arbor surrounded by vineyards. Afterwards people told me it was one of the sincerest, loveliest weddings they had been to.

I was never a girl to sit around imagining my wedding. As a consequence, I didn’t look at it as the pinnacle day of my life, just a day to celebrate the love of my husband and our covenant with God. Or put it another way, my wedding was the start of my life with my husband, not my sole achievement of womanhood. When you look at your wedding this way, you tend to be a little saner about it. Because believe me, I can think of a lot better ways to spend $50,000 than on a party.

Here are five tips that saved me money on my wedding:

1. Skip the Favors. Does anyone really want a chocolate kiss in a tulle bag? Or a tiny plastic dove tied to a plastic ring? Most guests will just toss this stuff out. I played around with giving favors and then opted not to. No one missed them.

2. Enlist Friends and Family. My mom made my wedding cake, saving me around $600. My uncle bought my flowers, saving me $500. The reception was in a family friend’s backyard–which also happens to be next to a winery. I wish I hadn’t hired a photographer, since friends and family took as many good photos as the official photographer did. If you have talented folks near you, see if they will lend you a hand.

3. Avoid Wedding Stores. Anything with the word “wedding” attached to it is going to be marked up 300%, so I spent almost no time in wedding stores. I bought my jewelry and hair supplies from other sources. My shoes were $5 at an outlet shop. I bought my slip and veil from eBay at around $25 each, saving $350. The only thing I bought at an actual wedding shop was the dress, which is kind of hard to get from other places.

4. Rethink the Open Bar. Far be it from me to tell people not to have a good time, but for most weddings, serving beer and wine/champagne is usually enough. There’s no need to break out the expensive scotch and tequila too. I mean you can, but keep in mind it’s going to cost a bundle.

5. Keep the Guest List Small. I only wanted people who knew me and loved me (or my husband) at the wedding, so we kept the guest list under 50 people. Not only did it create intimacy and a sense of joy, it had the side benefit of costing less because there are fewer people to accomodate. You know what they say, less is more.

One other point: Weddings fly by. I was shocked how quickly my wedding day passed. If you spend a fortune on the wedding, odds are you’re not going to get to enjoy most of it because you’re going to be too busy shaking hands and cutting cake and having the first dance. So don’t stress too much about the details–you’ll probably be too busy to care.